Split presidential vote reflects a split electorate

Up late watching the election results last night? Me, too, so let's hit these points quickly:

Bloomberg breaks down some numbers that highlight a central political truth: The electorate “remains divided like two foreign lands, split between men and women, whites and minorities, rich and poor, young and old.”

President Barack Obama won 55% of the female vote, down only slightly from 56% in 2008. But he won only 39% of the vote among whites, down from 43% four years ago. In Ohio, though, he did better, winning 42% of the white vote. (Thanks, auto bailout.)

Bad news for the GOP is that white voters represented 72% of the electorate, down from 74% in 2008. That number will continue to decline.

President Obama took 60% of voters under age 30. Mitt Romney had 56% support among those 65 and older.

The president won 93% of the black vote, down from 95% in 2008. Again, he did better with this group in Ohio, winning 96% of blacks here. Among Hispanics, President Obama won by a 71%-27% margin over Mitt Romney.

“Nationally, even modest white support is no longer necessary for a Democratic victory if there is strong turnout for minorities,” a Brookings Institution demographer tells Bloomberg.

The news service notes that Ohio now has voted for the White House winner in 13 consecutive elections.

President Obama won 69% of the vote in Cuyahoga County, matching his 2008 margin.

One of the smarter political comments you'll see today comes from Tom Zawistowski, executive director of the Portage County Tea Party and president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, the umbrella for Ohio tea party groups.

This story from The Wall Street Journal notes that according to exit polls on Tuesday, 21% of respondents said they supported the tea party movement, with 30% opposing it and 41% remaining neutral.

That reality prompts this reaction from Mr. Zawitowski: “I will reconsider where we're going and what we're doing. We thought when we won in 2010 that the people were speaking, but this tells us differently."

Regardless of how you feel about the election results, this blog post asks questions that everyone should agree are reasonable.

“Why can't the New York City Board of Elections hire workers who understand the system that employs them?,” the New York Times post asks. “Why can't officials in Cleveland and south Florida keep their voting machines working? Why is the election board in Pinellas County, Fla., sending out robo-calls saying people can vote until 7 p.m. Wednesday?”

As writer David Firestone sees it, “The reason for this is clear: making democracy efficient takes second place in the United States to the cherished notion of letting local officials run the election system.” He quotes Richard Hasen, a voting expert at the University of California, Irvine, who says the process of voting is left in the hands of “volunteers or poorly paid workers, many of whom lack adequate training or formal expertise.”

In addition, Mr. Firestone writes, “Their supervisors are partisans, often making decisions about spending money on new machines or expanding the system on the basis of how it will affect their party.”

He notes that Ohio's election board “made a serious error and falsely told thousands of people they were not registered. Rather than fix the problem, state officials decided those people would have to use provisional ballots, which will not be counted for two weeks.”

Both parties should make Election Day reform a priority for the mid-term elections in 2014.

The Washington Postcaught up with U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who wasn't on the ballot for the first time in 16 years.

“I haven't really noticed, because I'm a man in motion,” he tells The Post, in what almost certainly was an untrue statement.

Rep. Kucinich says he'll spend his last few weeks in Congress gearing up for a fight on the alternative minimum tax and building Kucinich Action, a “movement-based” political action committee.

“In Washington, D.C., you just need a place to stand,” he says. “You don't have to hold office to have impact.”

In case you weren't watching Fox last night when the network called Ohio for President Obama, you can check out the clip here of analyst/discredited PAC operator Karl Rove picking a fight with the Fox News Decision Desk.

Mr. Rove pulled out his notepad and started tallying figures of Ohio votes to argue that it was “premature” to declare President Obama the winner. “We have to be very cautious about intruding into this process,” he said.

Fox anchor Megan Kelly called it “cage match 2012” and went so far as to walk down the hall to present Mr. Rove's challenge to the Decision Desk tabulators. The desk staffers said they were “quite comfortable” with their call.

The Sherrod Brown/Josh Mandel race for the Senate attracted $36 million in outside money, most of it in support of the youthful Republican challenger.

At least Mr. Mandel gets to go back to a job he loves and performs very diligently.
Aside from the election ...

Keeping busy: “No one seems to have told Riverside Co. that the M&A market is in the dumps,” The Wall Street Journalsays about the active private equity firm with headquarters in Cleveland and New York.

The paper notes that Riverside, which focuses on buying companies valued at $200 million or less, has agreed to acquire online education company Learning Seat from Australian media conglomerate News Ltd., a division of News Corp.

The Learning Seat deal “is Riverside's 26th acquisition this year, just five off its record of 31 last year,” the newspaper says.

“We're not sure how many other firms have done 300 deals,” co-CEO Stewart Kohl tells The Journal. “We think it's a small number.”

The full spectrum: Sprint customers in Ohio stand to receive better service after the carrier reached a deal to buy U.S. Cellular markets in the Midwest for $480 million to boost its network capacity as it upgrades its network.

"Acquiring this spectrum will significantly increase Sprint's network capacity and improve the customer experience in several important Midwest markets," the company said.

On ice: Cavaliers rookie guard Dion Waiters is clearly a confident guy — and he's confident enough to challenge his teammate, last year's Rookie of the Year, Kyrie Irving.

He's keeping a diary for Dime Magazine and offers thoughts on Cleveland's weather, the James Harden trade and other matters. But then there's this, from the Philadelphia native who played basketball at frigid Syracuse:

“I'm looking for a skating rink out here. Kyrie told me there's one about 30 minutes from him so I'm probably going to go one day. I don't know if Kyrie really knows how to skate, like I really know how to skate. He probably can skate a little though.”